


A Little Closer to the Bone

by mazily



Category: Star Trek: Picard
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-22
Updated: 2020-06-22
Packaged: 2021-03-04 12:02:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,017
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24849469
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mazily/pseuds/mazily
Summary: Laris adjusts to life on Earth. Zhaban helps.
Relationships: Laris/Zhaban (Star Trek)
Comments: 5
Kudos: 23
Collections: Trek Rarepair Swap - Round 33





	A Little Closer to the Bone

**Author's Note:**

> Written for @pasty-latina in the Trek Rarepair Swap on tumblr. Many apologies for the lateness.
> 
> Thanks to Luna for the hand-holding, word-fixing, etc.

"—ass deep in," says the other voice— 

_William Thomas Riker, Human; rank: Captain, current posting: USS Titan. Married to Deanna Troi, Human and Betazoid; rank: Commander, position: counselor, also USS Titan. Father to—_

Zhaban's hand cuts through the name of Riker's child. The text flickers—

_—Thad—_

—and her screen goes blank. 

Laris shoves Zhaban's hand away. Tries to input more data. Zhaban waves away her screen yet again, and she pushes harder, thumps her hip against his, violent but far more gentle than she was trained. 

"Feck off," as she re-enters her codes. He counters. She pulls up Riker's bloody public service record, which is almost as fictitious as her own background ("Vous venez _d'ou_?" asked the fishmonger, finally, after staring after her every visit for a month. "Irlande." Deadpan, watching for the confused, gape-mouthed, ridiculous, _human_ response.). But it's important; she needs to check, needs to make sure he's safe.

_Current posting: USS Titan, 2379-present. Previous—_

The entire console goes dead. 

She is going to kill Zhaban. Gut him, drain him, destroy him. Never mind that it will leave her alone on this freezing backwater of a planet. Never mind that Picard will likely set her loose, adrift; she can move somewhere more suited to her anatomy. Somewhere warmer, drier, fuck the grapes and the old man she swore to take care of. It wouldn't be the first oath she's broken.

"There's nothing we can do right now," Zhaban says. "The Admiral is safe enough here with you watching over him, no matter how treacherous you assume his former crew must be. And even if you were to find something new—"

"If I _were_ to find something," she says. She'll throttle him, face to face: the discomfort of direct eye contact intensifying the experience. "That's a load of crap, and you know it." Which is clearly why Zhaban's destroying all their computers in an idiotic attempt to slow her down. He knows how good she is. Respects her abilities.

"—my point remains," he continues. 

Picard laughs at something. Coughs—

Laris is halfway across the room when Zhaban steps in front of her—

—and says, "I'm fine." And then, stern, his command voice, "Do not call Beverly."

"He's on a call with his trusted friend," Zhaban says, once they walk back out of hearing distance (when properly modulating their volume, as anyone with an ounce of self-preservation would do), "And he may just be noble and naive enough to believe we're not listening in on his private conversations." 

"But," Laris starts.

"He's not being poisoned," Zhaban says. There's more laughter, murmured but still audible from this distance, from the other room. "He's fine. See?"

She tries to concentrate on Picard's conversation even as Zhaban tries to distract her (fingers on her wrist, her elbow, her inner arm), sharp anger at herself for not thoroughly researching Picard's former crews yet. She was too distracted by the chateau's barely locked entrances, easily identified and therefore walked through, too busy coordinating a weapons cache and disbursing it properly across the property. Upgrading what security there was, and installing everything missing. And sleeping, the more fool her. 

She pushes Zhaban away. "I need to," she starts to explain.

—would know," and that's Picard. Wry and almost teasing, or so it seems to Laris based on months of observation, and, "Toreth," something about Riker's wife, and there's something about their names (Toreth, Deanna, Toreth, Deanna) that niggles at the back of Laris's brain. 

" _Laris_." Zhaban's hand is wrapped around her wrist, the air of this ridiculous planet itchy and wet against her skin, Laris allows herself to be drawn to another room. Permits Zhaban this small demonstration of—"care," he'd say, "caring"—power.

"There's something," she says.

"White or red?" Zhaban asks.

And then it's there, a sharp prickle of memory. "The _Khazara_ ," Laris says, the details of an old report flashing before her eyes (a Starfleet officer passing as a Tal Shiar agent on an Imperial Warbird; the report itself so highly classified she ought to have killed herself after reading it). Zhaban just looks at her, waiting, no trace of recognition at the name beyond the fact that it's clearly the designation for a Warbird. 

"White, I think," she says. She can no longer hear Picard's voice, and she accepts this small defeat. She stops trying. Won't keep straining for another hint of trouble. She has to trust in her capabilities: assume that Zhaban didn't deactivate the listening device she'd set up in that room, that she hid it well enough. "Something dry."

Zhaban pulls a bottle from one of Picard's refrigeration contraptions, foregoing glasses to continue walking toward the (obvious, ridiculous) door. That door is next on her list: after the more detailed background reports, and after she tries to reconcile herself to the fact that Picard's dear old friend is the woman who deceived the decorated Commander Toreth. (Laris isn't sure whether to count that against Commander Troi, or to congratulate her. She'd never much cared for Toreth.)

She shakes her head. Follows Zhaban outside. The sun is wrong against Laris's face, a watery, dulled source of warmth that would normally drive her back inside for another cardigan. But Zhaban had apparently foreseen that eventuality, known they'd end up out here, because her favorite—not that she'd ever confess as much—is draped across the nearby railing. She picks it up. Puts it on, wrapping it tightly across her chest, before sitting across from Zhaban at the wrought iron table. Even the chairs are slightly off; height, back, everything designed for another musculature, an alien set of bones. 

Zhaban opens the bottle. Already familiar with the way the humans plug a cork inside the top, the ways in which to remove it. Drinks first (always polite, her Zhaban; he drinks directly from the bottle and lets her watch him swallow, waits just long enough to show there's nothing fast-acting inside) and passes it to her. She can feel the echoes of his body heat when she touches the glass. 

"You finish it," he says. "I'm not really thirsty." 


End file.
